Pierluigi Paganini June 08, 2014

A major cyber attack might have compromised the personal information of 16000 current and former workers employed by the American command in South Korea.

US officials have revealed that military database in South Korea has suffered a major cyber attack which caused a data breach.

Data related to personnel employed by the United States military in South Korea may have had exposed according to a report issued by the AP agency.

General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. Forces in South Korea, revealed the data breach last week, data related nearly 16,000 current and former workers gave been compromised from two different databases.

The data breach is considered serious due to the nature of the information stolen, the US has around 28,500 soldiers in South Korea to control the activity of the North Korea in the peninsula. Stolen information could be used for intelligence activities or to arrange an attack in US bases in the area.

The data mainly relate to Korean citizens and includes names, contact information and work history. It seems that no classified military data was compromised.

South Korean entities, including military, banks and broadcasters, are constantly attacked by foreign hackers, North Korea is the principal responsible of cyber offensives. Also in this case, security experts have been blamed on North Korea, but the Government of Pyongyang denies any involvement.

U.S. Forces spokesman Christopher Bush announced that U.S. Army in investigating on the incident to determine who was responsible.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  South Korea, US, databreach)